OCR Text |
Show 1881.] DR. M. WATSON ON T H E SPOTTED HY^NA. 517 he is dealing with the extremity of the male urethra, an error only corrected by an examination of the internal organs"l. This orifice, I showed, is situated on the extremity of the well-defined glans clitoridis, that portion of the glans which is placed above the opening in question being formed by the spongy structure of the corpora cavernosa clitoridis, whilst the extremity of the glans below the orifice is formed by the walls of the urinogenital canal itself. The glans clitoridis of the virgin is moreover surrounded by a well-defined prepuce. In the paper referred to, whilst directing attention to the small diameter of the urinogenital canal of the virgin Hycena crocuta, I referred to the difficulty of explaining the passage of the young through so narrow a channel. An examination of the organs of the female which had borne young served to explain this difficulty, and showed that the external organs, including the urinogenital canal, undergo considerable alteration subsequent to parturition. These changes refer exclusively to the urinogenital canal, and more especially to the orifice of the latter, the internal organs of generation undergoing no alteration in form. With regard to the alteration in size of the urinogenital canal, I found that whilst in the virgin that canal does not exceed half an inch in diameter at any part, and that its orifice at the extremity of the clitoris is not larger than to enable an ordinary knitting-pin to be inserted, in the female which had borne young, on the other hand, the canal becomes dilated to such an extent as readily to admit of the insertion of three fingers into the orifice, and of their passage backward through its entire length. The orifice of the urinogenital canal, together with the extremity of the clitoris, moreover undergoes considerable alteration. In the virgin the orifice of the canal is situated on the extremity of the clitoris, m u c h as in the opposite sex ; whilst in the female which has borne young the lower portion of the glans clitoridis, which in the virgin is formed by the lower wall of the urinogenital canal itself, entirely disappears, and consequently the canal, instead of opening upon the extremity of the glans clitoridis as in the virgin, opens altogether below that body (compare figs. 1, 2, 3, Piate X L 1 X . ) . Owing to this change hi the relation of parts, the lower wall of the orifice of the urinogenital canal in the female which has borne young is formed, not by the lower portion of the glans clitoridis, but by the lower segment of the prepuce, with which the lower half of the glans clitoridis of the virgin has apparently coalesced. In the virgin female, moreover, the glans clitoridis, together with the orifice of the urinogenital canal, is contained within a single chamber formed by the encircling prepuce, the latter being attached to the glans by a single mesially placed frsenum. In the female which has borne young, on the other hand, the coalescence of the lower half of the glans clitoridis with the corresponding segment of the prepuce has, so to speak, occasioned a splitting of the frsenum clitoridis into two lateral halves, each of which is attached by one extremity to the lateral aspect of the glans clitoridis, whilst its other extremity is fused with the 1 P. Z. S. 1877, p. 369. |